What happens in Haiti doesn’t stay in Haiti

A dramatic case of a peacetime merger of military and police to make war on their country’s poor was the November 13, 2011 attack on Brazil’s Rocinha neighborhood and its ongoing occupation by United Nations trained soldiers together with Brazilian police. This is not the first, and it certainly will not be the last.

If your country has contributed soldiers to UN missions, sit up and take notice. Blue helmets are coming home to roost. Here, for example, is the roster of the troop contributors to the United Nations (de)Stabilization Mission in Haiti called MINUSTAH:

The “peacekeepers” are the fastest-growing branch of the UN, with a budget of $8 billion and over 110,000 troops serving 15 operations. Ten percent of this budget is spent on Haiti — a small country that is not at war — to train foreign troops, away from the public eye, for future urban warfare against their own civilians.

Another instance of violence first practiced on Haiti (Gonaives after hurricanes Ike and Jeanne), exported to the U.S. (New Orleans after hurricane Katrina) and returned to Haiti (Port-au-Prince after the earthquake), was the rampant corruption that thwarted reconstruction efforts despite huge sums of charitable donations.

Yet another attack on Haiti was the removal of its democratically elected leaders and their replacement by a succession of International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and now UN sycophants.

In the west, some might have glanced at their flat-screen televisions in between jokes and sips of wine, as UN “peacekeepers,” together with French troops, forciblyreplaced Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo with IMF economist Alassane Ouattara, five months after Laurent Gbagbo was declared the winner of his country’s elections.

About Dady Chery

Dr. Dady Chery is a Haitian-born journalist, playwright, essayist, and poet. She is the author of "We Have Dared to Be Free: Haiti's Struggle Against Occupation." Her broad interests encompass science, culture, and human rights. She writes extensively about Haiti and world issues such as climate change and social justice. Her many contributions to Haitian news include the first proposal that Haiti’s cholera had been imported by the UN, and the first story describing Haiti’s mineral wealth.